Killing The Klamath River

[Keta]

The Keno and Link river dams above JC Boyle have good fish passes but the river quality above the Keno dam is usually not good with low to no desolved oxygen.  Once they get to Upper Klamath Lake they have 20+ miles to go to reach the first potential spawning gravel.   

He river above JC Boyle and below the Keno dam has OK conditions for spawning.

[Gfish]

Awesome to see!

[Keta]

This morning I saw another article about salmon showing up above JC Boyle Dam. The tributary was not named but there is only one, Spencer Creek.  The lower section has potential but the middle section has little durable gravel and the upper section is blocked by a culvert and small waterfall.  If more fish get to  Spencer Creek tere is a good chance for successful spawning.  However this creek is not in the upper basin, that begins above the canyon just down river of Keno, where it starts it's way through the Cascade Mountains.

The next possible spawning area could be the mile long Link River 10 miles  above Keno.  After this section it is 20 or more miles to the Wood, Williamson and Sprague rivers.  The Wood and sections of the Sprague have the best spawning gravel with some in the Williamson.

[jurelometer]

This morning I saw another article about salmon showing up above JC Boyle Dam. The tributary was not named but there is only one, Spencer Creek.  The lower section has potential but the middle section has little durable gravel and the upper section is blocked by a culvert and small waterfall.  If more fish get to  Spencer Creek tere is a good chance for successful spawning.  However this creek is not in the upper basin, that begins above the canyon just down river of Keno, where it starts it's way through the Cascade Mountains.

The next possible spawning area could be the mile long Link River 10 miles  above Keno.  After this section it is 20 or more miles to the Wood, Williamson and Sprague rivers.  The Wood and sections of the Sprague have the best spawning gravel with some in the Williamson.

Good call.  That photo was from Spencer Creek.  In addition to following their sense of smell to the source above where they were born,  they must be looking for good spawning habitat.

ODFW also spotted a redd and a spent female in Jenny Creek.  I guess that is off Iron Gate. 

If they are seeing a dozen or so, there has to be more.  I think that they also spotted a lamprey past Iron Gate.  Whether or not the plan was the best one, the fish sure are stepping up to the plate to do their part...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/klamath-dam-removal-salmon-19844792.php

-J

[Maxed Out]

 One article I read said the Klamath tribes are excited about the salmon showing up in their nets. This just boggles my mind

[Gfish]

Be interesting if they could find spent-tagged fish to see their possible origins. The nose tags have a code on them and the fish are tagged as juveniles.

[oc1]

Since there has not been spawning areas available for a long time, these returning fish must have been hatchery reared with hatchery genetics.  No?

[Keta]

The river below Irongate had a lot of places for spawning in the fall after the river temperature dropped so there were native coho, chinook and steelhead.

The largest tributary of Jennie Creek historically gets dewatered in the spring and diverted to the Rogue Valley.

[jurelometer]

Since there has not been spawning areas available for a long time, these returning fish must have been hatchery reared with hatchery genetics.  No?

They are following the imprinted scents to get them in the neighborhood.  som of the scents come from upstream of the dam, blended from multiple tributaries. 

Since river/stream habitat can change  from year to year, it would not make evolutionary sense to try to return to a very specific location.  I would expect them to hone in the the general neighborhood and then find suitable spawning habitat. with some portion willing to spread out even farther to fill in any new suitable habitat.

Since they had dies-offs of fish milling around below the dams, I suspect there were fish whose programming was already pointing them upstream, they just couldn't get there. Now they can.

There are probably studies on this, but not feeling the urge to look for them at the moment.

-J

[Keta]

A high % of fish stray and spawn in other systems.

[oc1]

They're getting sophisticated and very picky about salmon genetics these days.  They have been able to differentiate fish from different water sheds with DNA.  Now, they're identifying genetically different subpopulations which have different spawning habits and timing within a system.  At times, they talk about a subpopulation becoming extinct even though the species as a whole is doing fine.

They can try to return waterways to their "natural" state but probably don't know the natural state of the fish subpopulations that were there before the dams.  It will be interesting to watch how secession and evolution (re-evolution) happens.  I bet they have some techno-tricks up their sleeve for Klamath?

[Keta]

One of the major issues for the Klamath is the parasite c.shasta.  They are in every stream in the North Pacific but the Klamath has far more than any other system.  If you put non Klamath fish in the river or lake they rapidly die.  Biologists have been trying to deal with this for years.  The parasite uses a intermediate host to reproduce that is attached to the weeds in the river, historically the flow of the upper river was drastically reduced by late summer, Link River often dried up completely.This reduced the c. shasta levels but they have kept the river higher than it was in the past allowing the parasite levels to explode.  Many of the tributaries below Irongate Dam have been over exploited, the Shasta River has been de watered several times by farms, the Salmon River by farms and pot growers and a very high % of the Trinity River ( the largest Klamath tributary) goes to the LA Basin, despite several court rulings.

https://microbiology.oregonstate.edu/research/aquatic-microbiology-ecology/monitoring-studies#:~:text=Ceratonova%20shasta%20in%20the%20Klamath%20River&text=Ceratonova%20shasta%20is%20a%20freshwater,impacts%20in%20the%20Klamath%20River.

I have heard that ODFW has planted salmon in the upper tributaries to jump start the recovery.

[Gfish]

Hatchery environments are like laboratories for breeding various fish diseases. Crowded raceways and ponds, low water quality, crappy diet and constant skin and fin injuries(they bite each other chasing after pellet feed).

[oc1]

One of the major issues for the Klamath is the parasite c.shasta.  They are in every stream in the North Pacific but the Klamath has far more than any other system.  If you put non Klamath fish in the river or lake they rapidly die.  Biologists have been trying to deal with this for years.  The parasite uses a intermediate host to reproduce that is attached to the weeds in the river, historically the flow of the upper river was drastically reduced by late summer, Link River often dried up completely.This reduced the c. shasta levels but they have kept the river higher than it was in the past allowing the parasite levels to explode.  Many of the tributaries below Irongate Dam have been over exploited, the Shasta River has been de watered several times by farms, the Salmon River by farms and pot growers and a very high % of the Trinity River ( the largest Klamath tributary) goes to the LA Basin, despite several court rulings.

https://microbiology.oregonstate.edu/research/aquatic-microbiology-ecology/monitoring-studies#:~:text=Ceratonova%20shasta%20in%20the%20Klamath%20River&text=Ceratonova%20shasta%20is%20a%20freshwater,impacts%20in%20the%20Klamath%20River.

I have heard that ODFW has planted salmon in the upper tributaries to jump start the recovery.

Wow.  That should keep the fish squeezers busy for a while.

[jurelometer]

Hatchery environments are like laboratories for breeding various fish diseases. Crowded raceways and ponds, low water quality, crappy diet and constant skin and fin injuries(they bite each other chasing after pellet feed).

It gets even more complicated.  They can release  disease free but non-resistant hatchery fish from  stock from a nearby river, which can allow this parasite to multiply to such a high level that it will overwhelm the infection load capacity of the resistant native fish in the Klamath.

I followed Lee's link to a couple more papers.

They just recently figured out that the only viable intermediate host (a type of tube worm)  is restricted to the Shasta and Williamette watersheds, which explains why only salmon and trout  from these rivers are resistant to the parasite. 

There are variants of this parasite too.  The ones more likely to infect the one-and-done spawners like chinook and coho are more deadly, while the one more likely to infect multiple spawners like steelhead usually result in a chronic infection.

River flows and water temps affect the abundance of the intermediate host, with the effects of damming and water diversions contributing to a larger populations.

Fascinating reading here:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11010528/

Anybody who thinks they know exactly how this project is going to turn out is fooling themselves. But at least we are trying to unwind the damage for a change.

-J